


We (Masculine Plural First Person)

by inabathrobe



Category: Lord of the White Hell - Ginn Hale
Genre: M/M, subsequently joss'd by canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 16:49:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3657912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inabathrobe/pseuds/inabathrobe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They buried Javier in the simmering heat of early fall as the trees at Rauma lost their leaves.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	We (Masculine Plural First Person)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sophie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophie/gifts).



> Many thanks to [Digs](http://archiveofourown.org/users/digs) who listened when I yammered.

They buried him in the simmering heat of early fall as the trees at Rauma lost their leaves. In the graveyard, they spilled down red as blood, pooling around the trunks as though the trees were so many wounded men. Elezar wore black, the same mourning clothes he had worn to his father's funeral the year before. (Javier was not there. Javier had missed so many things.) But Lord Grunito had died in winter, and his suit was made of tough woolen stuff to keep the heat in. In the warmth of the dying summer, sweat beaded his forehead, heat and nerves both.

The funeral had been thinly attended, and the burial was sparser still. The ceremony had been a good, old Cadeleonian one at Elezar's mother's insistence, presided over by Timoteo at his most magisterial (and most compelled by Elezar, since every other clergyman had refused the commission). But the burial would be in the Haldiim fashion and befitting a Bahiim. Kiram was not there, still in exile, still running from his life, but his uncles were: Rafie, drawn and quiet, and Alizadeh, his hair like a lion's mane, come to see that the rites were rightly done.

It was a simple thing, a few words, a few gestures, and he would be in the ground. Alizadeh had told them as much. He had asked Elezar —who had had to arrange the whole affair, even though Fedeles was Javier's heir and ought to have been his executor, but Fedeles had been in no fit state— if he wished to participate in the burial ceremony, and he had honestly said no. Elezar had loved Javier (in every way and in spite of himself and right up till the end when the letter had come), but he had no interest in his strange gods, not then and not now. He would have stood at Javier and Kiram's wedding, but he wouldn't stand and honor the gods who had put Javier in the ground.

But Fedeles, after barely managing two coherent words on the subject of the funeral for weeks, had insisted that he would participate, would take Kiram's place as first of kith and kin, even when Elezar had tried to bully him into letting Alizadeh take care of it. Fedeles had had none of it, so here he was, standing at the head of Javier's grave, dressed in the loose white robe of Haldiim mourning, murmuring the words that Alizadeh had taught him, fluid and meaningless on his tongue.

Elezar watched as they shuffled Javier's cloaked body out of the gleaming coffin, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and into the earth. It landed, heavy, with a sickly thump. He watched Fedeles's face draw tighter, his eyes shutting, the last of the color in his cheeks draining away. Alizadeh, standing just behind Fedeles, put a hand on his shoulder. Elezar, in the midst of the rest of the mourners —all three of them: Rafie and Nestor and Riossa, her belly round with their third child— was powerless to go to him, cemented in place by Nestor's hand on his upper arm and Fedeles's command beforehand to not make a scene.

Alizadeh, with Fedeles's help, threw the Haldiim's traditional offerings to the dead into Javier's grave: oil, honey, ground pistachio flour, the oak-leaf crown of the Bahiim. Elezar's eyes stayed dry until Fedeles shoveled the first heap of red raw earth into the grave, splattering across Javier's unmoving chest, covered in its thin white shift. One clod landed on the white skin of Javier's face, locked into a slight grimace by death's stiffness. Then, the slow sickening agony of it stole over him, and to his embarrassment, he sank to his knees, the sobs slowly wracking him, tearing through him like a woman's labor pains. Javier was gone. Javier was gone.

Elezar wept for a long time. At some point, arms wrapped around him, pressing his face into soft linen. Even through the strange clothes, Elezar knew the smell of him. When his tears slowed to something gentler and more seemly and he felt as though he had come to, the gravediggers were nearly finished. Fedeles was still sitting beside him, grass stains seeping into his white pants, shirt damp with Elezar's snot and tears, looking for all the world like Javier's ghost. "I'm sorry," Elezar croaked out. "I know you said not to make a scene."

"You're allowed to have a feeling," Fedeles said and then added, giving him a watery smile, "Only one, though. You can have one feeling." Elezar laughed and clung to him. It was early afternoon, and the sun was shining, and it was the sort of day that would have had them riding their horses across the entire estate when they were younger (but, no— not Fedeles and Elezar). And Javier was dead.

"We should go inside," Fedeles said. "Rafie only barely managed to get Nestor and Riossa to go back with him to the house, and they'll be worried until you come back in. —And there's the other guests to think of." Elezar nodded once. Fedeles clambered up, offering a hand to pull him to his feet. Elezar took it, but even when he was standing, Fedeles did not let go. "Come," he said.

-

Grateful for the chance to sit down and not think for a few hours before supper, Elezar had settled into an armchair in the little study off the guest bedroom that Fedeles always had made up for him and had begun to sort through the papers that his agents had sent to him to keep him abreast of all his own business in Anacleto.

He turned the pages mechanically, not registering their contents. (One day, they would bury him, too.) He was far enough away from that room to startle when a hand touched his shoulder. "It's just me," Fedeles said softly, brushing a kiss against his cheek. He perched himself on one armrest, draping his legs over Elezar's lap.

"You changed," Elezar said, running a hand over the front of Fedeles's loose green silk shirt.

"You hated what I was wearing."

"It made you look like a bride," he grumbled. "It's the wrong fucking color for mourning."

"It was respectful."

"It was that religion of his that got him killed."

"You know," Fedeles said casually, "I actually changed to avoid this exact conversation."

"I'm sorry," Elezar said, abashed.

"No, you're not." Fedeles dipped down to kiss him, and Elezar instinctively flinched away. "Ah."

"I— No, that was— Ugh." He pressed their foreheads together. "But he's dead, Fedeles."

"I know," he said, cupping Elezar's jaw, tilting his face up to look at him. His living breath was warm against Elezar's lips. So close up, Fedeles's face was a pale blur; it might have been Javier instead. And, fuck, he would bury him in the ground in an instant. Elezar cupped his face, pushing him back just far enough to come back into focus. His chest tightened. Fedeles was watching him, just a little sad around the mouth. Fedeles's cheeks were hollow the way Javier's had never been. His nose was unbroken, and he had the little scar jutting through his eyebrow. His lips were the same; they curved the same way; they made the same little moues and smirks. "You didn't come to offer to bring me a coffee," Elezar said softly, thumbing the corner of Fedeles's mouth.

"No."

"No." He roughly shoved the papers off his lap and pulled Fedeles into their place, and he half-tumbled into Elezar's arms, ungainly, all elbows, suddenly sixteen again. He clung to Elezar, arms around his neck, face buried there. Elezar rested a single hand on his back. "Cry," he said, and Fedeles did. And, from where he sat, Elezar could not see his face.

-

Downstairs, back at the reception, waiting for the dinner gong to sound, Elezar felt conspicuous. They had all met up again there, seemingly by accident, sitting across from one another at the little table in the parlor, the couples and he and Fedeles. Fedeles was drinking the nasty port wine to get terribly drunk and touching Alizadeh too much, on his bare forearms and his delicate wrists, who was in turn desperately trying to bring Riossa into their conversation.

Elezar turned to Nestor, who was fiddling with his cigar, one of the last of the good ones that Elezar had brought down with him from Anacleto. "How are the children?" he asked.

Nestor sighed. "Making trouble, no doubt. Their nanny hasn't the slightest luck with disciplining them. Only Riossa can keep them in line, you know." He flashed a smile at his wife.

"Mm," Elezar said. "And is Helena— well?"

Nestor bit his lip. "Yes, she had just started crawling when we left Anacleto."

"No," Elezar said gently. It was a common enough name among the Cadeleonians in Anacleto. "No, I meant my wife."

(A few seats over, Riossa knocked over the sugar bowl as she reached for the carafe of coffee. "Oh, bother!"

"No, my dear, don't worry," Fedeles said sweetly. "It doesn't bother me in the slightest." And Elezar wasn't sure if he meant the spilled sugar or the wife.)

Nestor licked his lips. "She's very tired these days with her time so near. It's hard on her, I think, with you away—"

Elezar caught his younger brother's eye and raised his eyebrows, silencing him. Nestor flushed scarlet and broke off mid-sentence. At the other end of the table, Fedeles began to laugh, his boisterous madman's laugh. "No, Nestor, please," he said. "I'm sure you won't hurt my feelings." His eyes sparkled with a drunk malice. "And Elezar knows perfectly well what he's done."

Letting his fury get the better of him, Elezar stood up, his bulk knocking his chair over, and stormed out of the room. He walked himself out onto the terrace, stood there, and looked up at the cloudless sky, and then kept walking. On the other side of the long sloping lawn, he could just make out the little grove of oak trees that Javier was buried under.

After a few minutes, when he could see through his tear-blurred eyes again, he heard quick footsteps behind him, light and familiar and jogging to catch up, and Fedeles's arms curled around his waist, nearly tripping him. "Is she very beautiful?"

Elezar shut his eyes. "Damn it, Fedeles."

"I only want to know what your life is like. Your real life."

Elezar hesitated. "I suppose she might be. I haven't— I stopped looking a long time ago."

"I hope she gives you beautiful sons."

Elezar sighed. They stood silent for a long time before Fedeles set a hand on Elezar's shoulder and whispered: "I would give you beautiful sons."

Elezar clutched at his hand where it lay. "Oh, hells, I know. I know, darling."

-

He was nursing his third glass of punishingly dry red wine after supper when his mother came over to talk to him, all poise and delicacy, so lately bereaved herself. She touched his shoulder. "Oh, my dear." She sighed. "I know you two were close at school. This must be very hard for you."

He nodded, swallowed, said yes. "My closest friend, I think."

"No doubt," she said, rubbing little circles on his back as she had not done since he was small. "And only harder still because it had been so long since you'd seen him."

Elezar blinked quickly, looking away. "Half a dozen years." And only his corpse to see in the end. "He wrote on occasion, but— Well. Present in some ways but never the same. Like after Father's accident. Something like that." She frowned, and her lips curled into a thin line. He dabbed at his nose with a handkerchief monogrammed in apple green with Fedeles's initials. "Sorry."

His mother's voice was tender as she said, "Sweetheart, you must understand, though— It looks rather odd."

He looked up. His nose was sore from blowing, chafed and raw at the tip. "What?"

"All these foreigners." She gestured at Alizadeh and Rafie, sharing a chaise and sitting with their thighs pressed against one another.

"Just two of them. Friends of Javier's from Kiram's family."

"Yes, but they're—" She whispered: "—benders."

Elezar pursed his lips. He could remember all too well the shouting match that had followed his delicate suggestion to Fedeles that they not invite Kiram's uncles. Fedeles had started by telling him not to be such a hypocrite and ended by throwing books at him until he fled the room. They had not spoken for nearly two days after that, and Fedeles had not left his room or let anyone in it for the better part of a week, hurling insults alternatively through the heavy oak door or from the balcony.

Finally, he let Elezar in to scream at him that he could get out of Fedeles's house and they had ended up fucking on the floor, Fedeles sobbing through most of it, his thighs practically digging into Elezar's sides, and Elezar sucking marks into Fedeles's neck and saying the wrong name at the end. Afterward, they had supper on the terrace, and Fedeles did not cry even once.

"Kiram's family is our family," Elezar said.

"That's just what I knew you'd say. Always willing to accept strays." She sighed. "You're just so worked up over it, lovey. And spending all this time with people like them— And after all Javier did— I mean, darling, he was in exile for a _reason_."

He finished his drink in one swallow. "What are you saying, Mother?"

"I'm saying —and you know it's true— that it looks a bit queer that you're spending so much time planning a criminal's funeral, attended by his, well, his _friend_ 's odd family —and, good lord, with the Duke of Rauma at that."

Elezar stiffened, fingers tightening around the stem of his empty wineglass. "Please don't bring Fedeles into this."

She threw up her hands. "I know you have a giving heart, but it's just too much. He isn't your responsibility, and neither is Javier, and you _know_ what they said about them. Say about the duke still."

"No," he said, taking a full glass from a passing waiter. "I don't."

"Elezar Grunito—"

"Tell me, Mother," he said icily. "What do they say about Fedeles?"

Her eyes were watery. "Words I would rather have them not say about you." She squeezed his shoulder.

He pulled away. "Let them say what they like."

"It doesn't matter how false the rumors are if everyone believes them."

He opened his mouth and shut it. "And if they weren't false, what then?"

Without missing a beat, she said, "Then, you have Helena to think of. You should respect your wife enough to maintain your good name for her sake."

"You should have thought of that before you made me marry her."

Lady Grunito gave a bark of unamused laughter. "You are not," she said, "a duke or even a lord, and you do not get to play as you please. You have responsibilities."

"So did Timoteo."

"Becoming a priest is not the same as taking up with the half-mad scion of a cursed house."

"They aren't—"

"They said he and Javier were brothers, not cousins, you know."

"Yes," he said. "I know." He saw it in Fedeles's face every day.

She grabbed his hand. "Please."

He did not know what she was begging for, then, but he could imagine a hundred hundred possibilities and one answer for all of them. He said nothing, and he did not meet her eye.

-

He pressed fingers, still cold from his iced wine, to Fedeles's elbow. "I think you should retire," Elezar said, trying to steer Fedeles away from his wine-brash conversation with one of his distant relations, who he was amicably touching rather often on the chest. Elezar gave the man a polite look that could be interpreted as sympathetic, even though it wasn't, and saw it returned in kind. He made his excuses and melted away into the crowd.

Fedeles turned to him, the full brute gleam of his face centered on Elezar. His mouth quirked into a smile, and he sipped his glass of red wine before speaking, "I'm not drunk," Fedeles said.

"You are."

Fedeles shrugged. "Maybe, a little." His cheeks were pink with it, and his eyes had a slight glaze to them. He touched his fingertips to Elezar's face. "Besides, he was mine, too, you know. You aren't the only one who misses him."

"I never said I was."

Fedeles crinkled his brow up. "He was my cousin," he said, "or my brother. Either. Both. My real, actual cousin-brother." He poked Elezar in the chest. "Not just—" He hiccupped. "—your imaginary lover."

"Please don't do this in public."

"We're not in public; we're in my house," Fedeles snapped. "Mine, not Javier's. And I'll say what I want in my own house."

"Fedeles," Elezar hissed. They were on the point of making a scene. "Lower your voice, or step out of the parlor for goodness' sake."

Fedeles laughed, throwing his head back. "Yes," he said, "let's retire to my rooms. That will be so much better."

"Was that loud enough?" Elezar asked.

"Well, I'm just not sure everyone at the party is completely clear on whether we are about to go to bed together."

Elezar, tucking a strand of hair behind Fedeles's ear, said gently, "We're not." A firm hand on Fedeles's elbow, Elezar escorted him up, got him into his pajamas, and put him to bed before returning to his parlor and his guests.

-

It was gone midnight when Fedeles stumbled up the stairs, senses numbed more by exhaustion than the amount of wine he had consumed. He turned to go into his own room, hesitating outside Fedeles's door. He went into his own instead and peeled off his suit, reeking of cigar smoke and sweat, before splashing cold water from the jug onto his face and then shrugging on his embroidered dressing gown. He looked into the mirror for long minutes before walking himself out of the room and across the hallway and knocking at the door across the way. Fedeles answered it sooner than he had expected. "Well," he said, "I wasn't expecting you."

"I thought you might want company."

"Now that Javier is buried, I don't think the dreams will come. Go sleep in your own bed." Fedeles smiled wanly, touching a light hand to Elezar's temple. "You deserve a good night's sleep."

"But what if I want company tonight," Elezar said. He put a hand on Fedeles's bare waist. Fedeles shivered under his touch. "Well. You. I want— you." He flushed red at the look of pleasure on Fedeles's face. Had he really never said as much? They stumbled together to the bed, clumsily stripping as they went, Elezar drinking in the taste of Fedeles's wine-sweet lips.

Later, spent, Elezar ran his fingers over the lines of Fedeles's face and realized that he could no longer remember what Javier's had looked like alive, just that rigid face locked in death and this his living shadow.


End file.
